At a House Judiciary Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke about the DOJ and FBI under President Donald Trump.
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00:00from the folks who are now running that critical department and agency.
00:04With that, I yield back.
00:06Thank you, Chairman.
00:07I now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Raskin, for his opening
00:11statement.
00:12Mr. Chairman, thank you very kindly.
00:15Last Congress, the good chairman of the committee and the committee sent over 150 letters of
00:22inquiry and subpoenas to the DOJ and the FBI.
00:25That's more than two inquiries a week for every week that we were in session.
00:30All that breathless investigation didn't yield much evidence of weaponization, any more than
00:36it led to the impeachment of Joe Biden, which was the express objective of it all.
00:41But I have good news for all of the weaponized sleuths and gumshoes out there on the committee.
00:48The Department of Justice and the FBI are now filled with actual staggering corruption
00:56and weaponized lawlessness, and we should get on it immediately.
00:59It's only been 36 days since the beginning of the administration, but we already have
01:04a thick report we're releasing today on the violations of law in the Constitution that
01:11have taken place, the early misdeeds of the Trump administration DOJ.
01:16It's true the federal courts have issued more than 20 temporary restraining orders
01:20and preliminary injunctions to try to stop this governmental crime wave, but we cannot
01:26maintain a demure legislative silence, Mr. Chairman, about the shocking weaponized corruption
01:32overtaking the U.S. Department of Justice.
01:37Ten days ago, seven career prosecutors resigned in protest rather than carry out a corrupt
01:42and lawless order from the acting Deputy Attorney General and former Donald Trump
01:47private defense attorney, Emile Bove.
01:50He ordered prosecutors in the Southern District to dismiss for totally political reasons a
01:55major public corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, who had been charged by
02:01a unanimous grand jury in a 57-page indictment with five felony counts of criminal bribery
02:08and soliciting illegal contributions.
02:11Trump ordered DOJ to withdraw the grand jury indictment after Adams traveled to Mar-a-Lago
02:19and agreed to back Trump's political agenda in return.
02:24The interim U.S. attorney, Danielle Sassoon, resigned rather than make her storied office
02:29a party to this profoundly corrupt bargain.
02:32She refused to extend prosecutorial favoritism towards a politician who had been indicted
02:39for serious bribery and corruption charges, nor would she participate in Mr. Bove's project
02:45to cover up the details of this dirty deal.
02:48Ms. Sassoon is a Republican with impeccable credentials in the conservative movement,
02:53for anyone who might doubt it, a member of the Federalist Society and a former law clerk
02:59to Supreme Court Justice Scalia, a jurist whom I know the Chairman has repeatedly praised.
03:05Now, in ordinary times, we wouldn't have to raise this, but here we do, because we live
03:09in an atmosphere of political paranoia.
03:11This is a very conservative U.S. attorney who said she could not abide the corruption
03:18of the new Trump administration's Department of Justice.
03:21Her resignation triggered a cascade of further resignations as six other veteran prosecutors
03:28refused in their turn to take part in this corrupt bargain.
03:32The officials included the acting head of the criminal division, several leaders of
03:36DOJ's public integrity section, and the lead prosecutor on the case from the Southern
03:41District, Hagan Scotton, a decorated veteran and another Republican with impeccable right-wing
03:47credentials who could not stomach the thought of joining this plot, and said in a letter
03:52for the ages that I will submit to the record that it would take a fool or a coward to join
04:00this plot against justice.
04:02Next day, an apparently exasperated Mr. Bove demanded that the career prosecutors in the
04:08public integrity section volunteer one lawyer to sign this disgraceful dismissal order or
04:16there would be a mass firing of all of them.
04:18One lawyer set to retire agreed to sign the dismissal to protect his colleagues from this
04:25outrageous threat of collective mass punishment, something that would be more appropriate to
04:30Stalin's Russia than the United States of America.
04:34This eye-popping sellout of public integrity and public safety in New York wasn't even
04:39a secret.
04:40In a Fox News interview, Tom Homan, the borders are, sat next to Mayor Adams and explicitly
04:46referred to the corrupt bargain, saying, quote, if he doesn't come through, I'll be back in
04:51New York and we won't be sitting on a couch, I'll be in his office up his butt, saying
04:55where the hell is the agreement we came to?
04:58Last Friday, the judge in the case at least provisionally refused to honor this dirty
05:04deal.
05:05Instead, appointing an independent monitor, Republican Paul Clement, to evaluate what
05:10should be done with the now orphaned five count criminal corruption indictment.
05:15Mr. Chairman, these facts are shocking, blatant corruption, cover-up, mass resignations, threats,
05:22coercion.
05:23This, can you imagine what the Republican members of this committee would be saying
05:28if that happened under President Biden?
05:30If Joe Biden had done that for the corrupt Democratic mayor of New York City?
05:35My God, this toxic sweetheart deal demands a committee inquiry.
05:41Where is it?
05:42It's infinitely worse than any of the flotsam and jetsam the committee examined with the
05:48brainy intensity of Lieutenant Columbo in last Congress.
05:51But the majority has asked no questions, written no letters, demanded no briefings, issued
05:56no subpoenas on this scandal.
05:58Why not?
05:59Why has the cat got your tongue?
06:02Well, this Adams debacle provides just a whiff of the raw sewage already overpouring the
06:09Department of Justice.
06:10They sacked dozens of prosecutors with superior credentials and evaluations simply for doing
06:16their jobs when they were assigned to work on the January 6th case.
06:20These people must get their jobs back under the civil service rules, which allow dismissal
06:25and discipline only for poor performance or misconduct.
06:28But the majority has not uttered a peep wondering about how such an appalling violation of the
06:34law and professional ethics has come to pass.
06:37Why not?
06:38Last Congress, you investigated the DOJ for allegedly hiring and firing employees based
06:42on political ideology.
06:43Nothing came of it.
06:45Now DOJ has openly fired dozens of career prosecutors, Republicans, Democrats, Independents,
06:51for the sole reason that they were assigned to work on the January 6th insurrection cases.
06:57In other words, for doing their jobs in a case that Donald Trump now considers uncomfortable
07:02for him.
07:03How is that remotely acceptable?
07:06Even Trump said on January 7th, in the wake of the vicious premeditated attack on our
07:11police and our Congress and our Constitution, that it was a heinous attack.
07:16He said the demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American
07:20democracy.
07:21To those who engage in acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country.
07:25And to those who broke the law, he said, you will pay.
07:29Well, the only people paying now after his pardons are the prosecutors and FBI agents
07:34they're going after for doing their jobs.
07:38Because Donald Trump thinks it's too much truth.
07:41In an act of Orwellian revisionism that would make Joseph Stalin blush, Trump's team wants
07:46to punish hardworking prosecutors and FBI agents for doing the job they were told to
07:52do.
07:53If this is not weaponization of the Department of Justice, then what is, Mr. Chairman?
07:58It is far worse than the imaginary things floating around last Congress that led nowhere.
08:05When will we have a hearing on what is taking place for real in the Department of Justice
08:09right now?
08:10They've hollowed out the career leadership ranks at DOJ, ravaging the offices that prosecute
08:16public corruption and terrorism.
08:18Now we meet Ed Martin, the new U.S. attorney in D.C. who's already proven himself to be
08:23to legal ethics what Bobby Kennedy is to public health.
08:27He's an election denier who participated in the insurrectionary mass protest of January
08:346th, which he joyfully likened to Mardi Gras on the social media.
08:39And until recently, very recently in fact, into his term of office, he's been a defense
08:44lawyer of record in the courts for numerous January 6th criminal defendants.
08:50After taking over the U.S. attorney's office, he fired dozens of prosecutors, again, for
08:56doing their jobs, for prosecuting January 6th rioters.
09:00But DOJ ethics rules plainly require that he recuse himself because of this glaring
09:05conflict of interest created by his ongoing representation of private plaintiffs being
09:12prosecuted by the government.
09:13Naturally, the Trump DOJ forced out the senior ethics official, Brad Weinsheimer, who would
09:19have ruled on the matter, and replaced him with two inexperienced political appointees
09:23who apparently think it's okay not just for the fox to guard the hen house, but for the
09:27fox to simultaneously represent other foxes in court who have already ravaged the hen
09:33house.
09:34Mr. Martin has literally made filings on both sides of January 6th cases as defense counsel
09:40for participants in the riot, and now as a prosecutor dismissing the charges against
09:45the same defendants he was representing.
09:48When will there be a hearing on this?
09:50This is taking place right now.
09:53The list goes on.
09:54We don't have time to go through everything that's already happened, but I would encourage
09:57the chairman to please check out our report.
10:01This hearing was entitled, Entering the Golden Age, Ending the Weaponization at the Department
10:07of Justice, a title that comes just in time to help us celebrate the 50th anniversary
10:12of Saturday Night Live.
10:13Well, perhaps the title's referring to a golden age for corrupt billionaires, or lawless oligarchs,
10:19and violent white nationalists, but it's no golden age for the Department of Justice,
10:24which is now mired in corruption and lawlessness, halting corruption prosecutions, disbanding
10:30the anti-corruption task forces, and purging veteran prosecutors and agents who are dedicated
10:36to public safety and have superior performance evaluations, but have run afoul of the new
10:41political correctness imposed on the department.
10:45Chairman Jordan has championed our power under Article I to ensure that the Department of
10:49Justice upholds the rule of law for all, without fear or favor.
10:53Good for him.
10:54I don't need to quote his eloquent speeches for you on this subject.
10:57We know them well.
10:59So I ask this committee to be true to our own beautiful words.
11:03Let's not use our oversight power selectively.
11:06Let's investigate these startling developments so dangerous to justice in America.
11:12And let's start with the dirty deal with Mayor Adams, which has now put a giant worm in the
11:17Big Apple.
11:18Mr. Chairman, I would invite you to join us in sending this letter today to Attorney General
11:24Bondi demanding specific answers on her shocking abuse of prosecutorial power, the shocking
11:31abuse of prosecutorial power that has taken place at DOJ in the whole Mayor Adams matter,
11:37and I would think that the committee should move very quickly to have a hearing on this
11:40next week.
11:41Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
11:42I yield back.
11:44Thank you, Ranking Member.
11:45Real quickly, Pam Bondi will be here for the Committee of the Whole, I'm sure, and members
11:50also will meet some of our staff and ranking people.